Under the shake-up, Donal Smith is promoted to the newly created position of chief operating officer, Thomson Financial Europe. He is charged with spearheading revenue growth for the operation and is responsible for all product development, sales and client support in Europe.

The company, which trails behind Bloomberg and Reuters in the provision of market data services and intelligence to financial markets clients, has overhauled the branding and marketing of its business information services in a bid to take on the market leaders. Thomson Financial products are generally cheaper than those of its competitors, but the company has been held back by an incoherent strategy and perceived lack of focus. With the current squeeze on technology spending at big investment banks, Thomson executives believe the company is in a good position to achieve market penetration at the expense of its competitors.

Smith says the new European structure will help the company "to better understand and service our customers, so that we can deliver solutions intrinsically tied into their workflow processes, regardless of what they do or where they work. Together with centralised points of contacts for sales, billing and client services, we will cater for the needs of all clients".

Smith, who previously held the role of managing director, sales & trading Europe, will report to Jim Malkin, CEO, Thomson Financial Europe and will maintain a reporting line to former Bloomberg stalwart Lou Eccleston, president, sales & trading for Thomson worldwide.

Sue Lait, who has spent the past year running a European strategic account management group for the company, has been appointed to the newly created position of sales director, Europe.

Eric Resnick and Angela Burdett will lead the European application and product management efforts for teams focusing on the investment management and sales & trading communities and investment banking, respectively. Customer service in these areas will be driven by Nick Harrall in an expanded role as client service director.

Seperately, Reuters today was forced to deny a Sunday Times report that new non-exec director Niall Fitzgerald, a co-chairman of Unilever, has been lined up to take over the chairmanship from current incumbent Christopher Hogg. A brief statement on the company Web site says: "Reuters confirms that no such decision has been taken or is currently planned".